Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to be present at every significant stage of a criminal proceeding.
Every significant stage of a criminal proceeding must be held on record.
Yet, that's not what is happening in Otsego County Court (State of New York), where Judge John Lambert or Judge Brian Burns are presiding.
The usual "procedure" invented by these judges in felony cases is as follows.
The criminal defendant and his/her attorney are required to appear at endless pretrial conferences, whether they have anything to discuss with the prosecution or not.
Non-appearance is punishable by a bench warrant against the criminal defendant and as a contempt of court against the attorney.
This way these judges make sure that criminal defendant's funds are drained on legal fees before trial, in order to "secure" a plea deal where all factual inconsistencies in criminal charges are waived.
When the attorney and his client arrive for the conference, and many attorneys and clients are scheduled for conferences on the same day, Judge Lambert or Judge Burns (whoever is handling the cases) first ask into their chambers (1) the prosecutor; (2) officers from police and probation.
Defense attorneys are not called into the chambers immediately, and the DA and his witnesses do not leave the chambers with every criminal defense attorney called into chambers.
Later on, at trial, the same witnesses may be called to testify, yet, instead of being sequestered, they sit in the judge's chambers and have a potential to communicate with the judge behind closed doors before the criminal defense attorney is called in.
After a period of communication behind closed doors between the judge, the district attorney and the DA's witnesses, defense attorneys - without their clients, criminal defendants - are called into the chambers.
No stenographers are present and conferences are held off record, in the absence of criminal defendants - which is a reversible error already.
Probation officers are present notwithstanding whether, in accordance with state law, criminal defendants did or did not sign a written waiver to communicate with probation officers as part of a pre-plea investigation.
I know from an attorney who suffered a harsh rebuke from Judge Lambert that judge Lambert verbally lashed out at an attorney who tried to put on record what the attorney discussed in chambers. The attorney was shaken up since Judge Lambert, who was much younger than the attorney, yelled at the attorney (I won't disclose the gender here, to protect the attorney's identity from retribution).
So, instead of carefully preserving all communications with the court at important stages of criminal proceedings on record, Judge Lambert and Judge Burns hold ex parte communications in chambers with the DA (their former boss), the DA's witnesses, probation officers - without written waivers from criminal defendants agreeing to talk to probation officers - and where criminal defense attorneys are invited while the DA and his witnesses are already sitting there, while criminal defendants are never invited and record of such proceedings is not kept.
These conferences happen, as I mentioned above, often, and it is my belief that such conferences are meant to drain criminal defendants of funds to be able to go to trial, because all of their funds are spent on paying their attorneys to appear at such unnecessary and unlawful conferences.
As I mentioned above, both Judge Lambert and Judge Burns are former employees of Otsego County District Attorney John Muehl, both are former Assistant District Attorneys of Otsego County, Judge Lambert is the former Chief Assistant District Attorney of Otsego County, which makes their "familial" interactions with John Muehl an even more egregious misconduct.
And, despite the fact that unlawful practices of Judge Lambert and Judge Burns are well known in the court system, both of these judges were promoted by the New York State Court Administration.
Judge Lambert was made a supervising judge in upstate New York over DWI cases in the 6th Judicial District, and Judge Burns has been promoted to supervise town and village courts in upstate New York in the 6th Judicial District.
It appears that for New York State Court Administration judicial misconduct such as Judge Lambert's and Judge Burns' in criminal proceedings must be not prosecuted, but instead must be rewarded.
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